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Discusses the ethics and pragmatics of the practice of schools in the United States of denying students a diploma unless they pass high-stakes testing in up to five academic areas. Arguments for educational standards reform and high-stakes student assessments; Impact of the practice on students and children of color; Arguments against high-stakes testing.

Presents information on the author's journey with CalTrain from San Francisco to Santa Clara, California, while focusing on the behavior of students of the Bellarmine College Preparatory School and other schools who boarded the train and bus. Details on the behavior of the Bellarmine students; How the CalTrain staff and passengers cope with the behavior of the students; Indepth look at the journey of the author on the number 44 bus from Glen Park.

Focuses on the National Council of Teachers English/International Reading Association's (NCTE/IRA) Standards for the English Language Arts. Importance of formal standard English to education; Necessity of having a working knowledge of the systems and structures of languages; Attempts to reinvent English teaching; How the standards will benefit students.

Comments on the Reading Report Card released by the National Assessment of Educational Progress on September 1993. Imitation of the clumsy packaging of the Educational Testing Service; Masking of cognitively dissimilar performances; Registration of poor scores by minority and socially-disadvantaged groups.

Purpose: Bulbomembranous stenosis is a significant complication of radiotherapy for prostate cancer. Our purpose is to report outcomes of urethroplasty for radiation-induced bulbomembranous urethral stenoses. Methods: Thirty-five patients underwent urethroplasty for refractory radiation-induced bulbomembranous stenoses from January 2004 to November 2013. Patients had a minimum follow-up of 12 months with routine cystoscopy at 6 and 12 months. Primary outcome was urethral patency, and secondary outcomes were 90-day complications, de novo incontinence, de novo erectile dysfunction and bothersome LUTS. Outcomes were compared using Fisher's exact test. Results: Of the 35 patients, 20 and 15 had stenosis related to external beam radiation therapy and brachytherapy, respectively. Mean stricture length was 3.5 cm. Reconstruction was performed using anastomotic urethroplasty in 23 patients (65.7 %), while 12 required tissue transfer as a buccal mucosa graft (20.0 %) or penile island flap (14.3 %). With 50.5 months of follow-up, thirty patients (85.7 %) achieved cystoscopic patency with no significant difference between techniques ( p = 0.32). A 90-day complication rate of 31.4 % was observed (all Clavien 1-2) with no difference between techniques ( p = 1.00). Adverse change in continence occurred in 25.7 % of patients (13.3 % in those without previous TURP). Postoperatively, persisting storage LUTS occurred in 40.0 and 30.4 % described adverse change in erectile function (exclusively in the anastomotic urethroplasty group). Conclusions: Reconstruction of radiation-induced bulbomembranous stenosis yields satisfying patency rates. However, radiation-induced urethral stenosis is not an isolated problem as many patients suffer from storage symptoms, erectile dysfunction or incontinence as a consequence of treatment either before or after urethroplasty. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]